Arne Duncan Supports Local Reform and State Flexibility

President-elect Barack Obama is set to nominate Chicago Public School CEO Arne Duncan to be the next Secretary of Education.

Mr. Duncan is known as one of a handful of innovative, reform-minded big city schools chiefs. How that will translate to the national level remains to be seen. Conservatives should be heartened that Mr. Duncan recognizes the need for local leadership and innovation. And that he supports amending federal policy to grant states greater flexibility and autonomy. Yet given his support for sharp federal spending increases, it is unclear how well the Secretary translates local lessons to the federal level.

What is clear is that Mr. Duncan’s past work has earned applause from school reformers. He supports charter schools, public school choice, and merit pay for teachers and school leaders. Duncan also supports holding schools accountable for results and maintaining transparency about school performance through public reporting.

Of course, the 24 billion dollar question is: what the next Education Secretary thinks about No Child Left Behind and the federal government’s role in education?

Mr. Duncan supports NCLB. But as the leader of the nation’s third largest school district, he has dealt with the challenges of implementing the federal law. Those of us who are skeptical that Washington can fix the problem in the nation’s public schools should be encouraged by Mr. Duncan’s support for providing states and school districts with greater flexibility and autonomy.

Testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee in 2006, Mr. Duncan spoke approvingly of NCLB’s accountability framework. But he noted that Chicago’s success depended largely on the opportunity to innovate in how federal goals are met:

Congress should maintain NCLB’s framework of high expectations and accountability. But it should also amend the law to give schools, districts and states the maximum amount flexibility possible—particularly districts like ours with a strong track record of academic achievement and tough accountability.

This suggests that the next Secretary may be open to the proposals championed by conservatives like the A-PLUS Acts that grant states greater autonomy and flexibility in how funds are used if states agree to maintain academic accountability and transparency.

As the leader of a big city school system, Mr. Duncan should recognize that it takes leadership on the ground to improve a public school system. It would be a breath of fresh air if the next Secretary recognized the limits of federal power and worked to reform NCLB to empower local leadership.

Mr. Duncan’s experience in Illinois should also cause him to recognize some of the dangers of federally driven accountability. As Heritage has pointed out, NCLB’s arbitrary deadline that all students be scoring “proficient” on state tests by 2014 has created a perverse incentive for states to weaken state standards to demonstrate artificial progress on state tests. The Land of Lincoln appears to be a leader in the so-called “race to the bottom.”

Paul Peterson and Rick Hess have been tracking national trends in state standards since 2005. They report that Illinois’s standards have weakened between 2003 and 2007. Only 8 states had weaker standards than Illinois. Ending perverse federal incentives to lower standards should be a priority for any NCLB reauthorization.

In one key area, Mr. Duncan appears to be singing the traditional liberal tune: supporting sharp increases in federal funding for education. In his 2006 congressional testimony, he called on Congress to double funding for NCLB over five years, promising that, “funding education is simply the best long-term investment Congress can make.”

In this respect, Mr. Duncan deserves a failing grade for his knowledge of the history of the federal role in education. Decades of increased federal expenditures have yielded little improvement in student performance. After adjusting for inflation, federal spending per-pupil has tripled since the 1970s. But long-term test scores have remained relatively flat.

Since spending on NCLB has already grown by nearly 50 percent since 2001, the next Secretary of Education may have difficulty explaining why pouring another $24 billion into the nation’s school systems will provide the answer — especially in the context of the ballooning budget deficit.

In the days ahead, we will be learning a lot more about Arne Duncan’s views on education policy. But it is encouraging that Duncan has demonstrated leadership in local school reform and supports giving states and school districts greater flexibility from federal regulation to encourage innovation.

During the campaign, President-elect Obama spoke about the need for a new vision for American education for the 21st century. Here’s hoping that as the next Education Secretary Arne Duncan will work to transform the federal government’s role in education and support the kind of successful local leadership that brought him to Washington.

Join The Discussion

I changed careers after 15 years in publishing to become an inner city classroom teacher. I just finished a $45,000 Masters in Education and everything I learned frowns on NCLB, standardized tests and cookie-cutter approaches to learning. After two years in real teaching, I see the key is recruiting forward thinking, flexible, adaptable, energetic, enthusiastic, caring and tech-savvy teachers.

I suggest you visit or volunteer in an underperforming school and see for yourself. What you will find is kids already affected by crime, poverty and family dysfunction being pushed and pressured to perform on state tests so bureaucrats can manufacture a positive narrative out of scores and stats. We already see massive cheating, teaching-to-the-test and a 17% reduction in "non-core" classes like gym, music, art and even social studies and science. Still NCLB fails and it always has, because we aren't preparing students to think critically and innovate and we are literally trailing the kids in the use of technology!

[…] This suggests that the next Secretary may be open to the proposals championed by conservatives like the A-PLUS Acts that grant states greater autonomy and flexibility in how funds are used if states agree to maintain academic accountability and transparency. Continue reading… […]

Enough with the teaching-to-the-test tears. If you have a teacher or administrator doing this they should be retrained or dare I say schooled. Effective teachers don't. The "NCLB is bad" montra is the teacher's union pay-to-play.

[…] Chicago Public Schools in 1998 and was appointed CEO of Chicago Public Schools on June 26, 2001. Mr. Duncan is known as one of a handful of innovative, reform-minded big city schools chiefs. How that will […]

I teach Language Arts at an inner-city school. I am glad to hear about Duncan's support of more local involvement, I'm rather convinced that has been the reason for my school improving these last few years– students, teachers, and parents involving themselves.

I think that solving issues within school, especially within the inner-city need to be tackled at the most local level possible– the family. I would love to see a Secretary of Education that can manage to emphasize the family as the unit that will save our school children, not the dollar bill.

[…] Dan Lips @ the Heritage Foundation (via Kathryn Jean Lopez): What is clear is that Mr. Duncan’s past work has earned applause from school reformers. He supports charter schools, public school choice, and merit pay for teachers and school leaders. Duncan also supports holding schools accountable for results and maintaining transparency about school performance through public reporting. […]

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